Dispute over Islamic cemetery splits N. Texas community

1of 4Downtown Farmersville has the look and feel of a small Texas town from years gone by.Photo: Joe Holley

2of 4On his blog, Bart Barber, pastor of Farmersville's First Baptist Church, contends that religious liberty in this country applies to Christians and Muslims.Photo: Joe Holley

3of 4"Our history is full of Islamic problems," says the Rev. David Meeks, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church. "They're at war with us."Photo: Joe Holley

4of 4Khalil Abdur-Rashid, who grew up Southern Baptist in Atlanta, would like to have a dialogue with Farmersville opponents of the cemetery.Photo: Joe Holley

FARMERSVILLE - In the 1930s, this little Collin County town 15 miles east of McKinney shipped off to market a thousand carloads of onions every year. These days "The Onion Capital of North Texas" still has an open-air Onion Shed for its monthly Farmers & Fleas Market, but the pungent aroma of "Collin County Sweets" no longer permeates the air. Still, with its red-brick downtown streets and tree-shaded residential neighborhoods, the town named for its founders' livelihood has retained its rural charm. It's a few miles east of the amoeba-like spread of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, so it hasn't succumbed - for now, at least - to the soulless strip centers and sprawling subdivisions that have overwhelmed neighboring towns.

In addition to a state football championship in 2007, Farmersville, population 3,301, is known as the hometown of Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated combat soldiers of World War II and later a movie star who appeared in more than 40 films, including the autobiographical "To Hell and Back" (1955). Every year, the town commemorates that summer day in 1945 when the baby-faced 20-year-old came home to a hero's welcome.

"Farmersville gets as close as any small town I've ever been in to the good things that people think about when they think about what small towns are like," said Bart Barber, pastor for the past 16 years of the First Baptist Church. "It's one of those places where, if you have offers to go elsewhere, you turn them down so you can stay here."

Sailed right through

The wider world has come calling, nevertheless, and that's why, on the busy opening day of Vacation Bible School this week, the 45-year-old pastor and I were talking. A few weeks ago, the Islamic Association of Collin County, a consortium representing the five mosques in the county, proposed buying 35 acres just outside the city limits for a cemetery. With an estimated 22,000 Muslims in Collin County, the group had looked in Allen, Frisco and Plano but could not find a suitable site. The privately owned tract west of town, near West Audie Murphy Parkway, met all its needs.

Since the land was in the town's extra-territorial jurisdiction, the engineering firm contracted to build the cemetery had to appear before the Planning and Zoning Commission. City Manager Ben White told me he expected a bit of controversy that day in May - but not because of the Muslim cemetery. The Happy Cucumber, an artisan pickle-making business, wanted to move into a building downtown, and White thought some commissioners might object. As it turned out, the Happy Cucumber's proposal sailed through, as did the Muslim group's.

'Danger is so real'

Soon, though, word began to spread like the pervasive odor of onion that Muslims were invading the little town that time seems to have forgotten. For a special called meeting of the planning commission, a standing-room-only crowd had insistent questions about Muslim burial practices and the group's long-term plans for the site. Attendees expressed fears of Muslim indoctrination and possible violence against cemetery opponents. "I do not want to be constantly in view of a mosque," a woman testified.

The Muslim group's most outspoken adversary is the minister of a country church eight miles north of town. David J. Meeks grew up in the area and has been pastor of the historic Bethlehem Baptist Church since 2006. One of his ancestors founded the church, in 1854, and he himself comes from a line of preachers stretching back to the American Revolution - all of them Baptist, he said, except one Methodist.

Sitting on a living-room couch in the parsonage near the church, the 65-year-old minister said he'd been studying Islam for about 25 years and considered himself something of an expert. "It's a quasi-pseudo religion," he said, an English-language copy of the Quran on the coffee table beside him and a venerable family Bible on the couch. "It's a political movement more than anything else."

Meeks, who said he's been told by Southern Baptist officials that he's "on the wrong side of the fence" on this issue, is not given to preacherly histrionics, but he's uncompromising about Islam and the proposed cemetery. "I feel the danger is so real that I must do everything I can to try to stop it," he said, adding that he doesn't advocate violence or disrespectful behavior.

Twenty miles south of the country church, down beehive-busy Central Expressway and into the heart of an upscale Plano neighborhood, is an airy, domed building that houses various clinics, a gym, offices and a mosque serving 8,000 members. The Islamic center has been in its Plano location for more than 15 years.

'Dealing with hate'

Khalil Abdur-Rashid, 40, the mosque's resident scholar, is an Atlanta native whose late father was the first African-American mayor of Stone Mountain, Ga., birthplace of the revived Ku Klux Klan in 1915. He grew up in a Southern Baptist household. An adjunct lecturer on Islam and human rights at SMU, he holds a master's degree in Middle East Studies from Columbia University.

"The need to provide a resting place for your loved one is a fundamental human need," he said. "We didn't think there would be this backlash when it comes to a cemetery, but what we realized, quickly, after this [P&Z commission] meeting is that we're dealing with hate."

Abdur-Rashid, who said he had received calls from Farmersville residents apologizing for some of the comments during the City Council meeting, told me he's offered to go to Bethlehem Baptist Church or anywhere else in Farmersville "to have a dialogue." What he would tell those suspicious of the association's plans, he said, is that there will never be any type of religious ceremonies at the cemetery, since Muslims are forbidden from saying prayers at a grave site. He also would explain that, even though Muslims do not embalm their dead, they must comply with all state and local regulations. He also would point out that the group has no plans to buy additional land or expand operations at the Farmersville site. The only structures will be two restrooms and a gazebo overlooking a pond.

Jim Foy, Farmersville's mayor pro-tem, said that the next step is for the Islamic association to present its final plans to the Planning and Zoning Commission. If all is in order, the City Council is obligated by law to approve the project.

That's as it should be, says Barber - on his blog postings, in his sermons and to me. When he was a student at Baylor, he said, he got interested in issues of religious liberty and to this day keeps a print of Norman Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" on his office wall. "The rights of conscience are inalienable," he said, "and religious conscience is among those inalienable rights - and that includes Muslims. If I can build a church, then Muslims can build a mosque."

Both Barber and Foy, a longtime resident, suggest that those opposing the cemetery represent a vocal minority. "Farmersville is a remarkable place," Barber said, "and I'm confident the community will see its way through this controversy."

Maybe so, but city officials have received death threats. Their livelihoods have been threatened. As the summer heats up, so does the dispute.

Native Texan Joe Holley is a former editorial page editor and columnist for newspapers in San Antonio and San Diego and a staff writer for The Washington Post. He has been a regular contributor to Texas Monthly and Columbia Journalism Review and is the author of two books, including a biography of football hero, Slingin' Sammy Baugh. He joined the Houston Chronicle in 2009.